Asian Swan Song Zuniceratops Zuniceratops-like animals probably evolved in Geographically isolated from one another, Asia and dispersed to what is now western Asian and North American ceratopsids Order Ornithischia followed vastly different evolutionary Suborder Ceratopsia North America. paths. Native Asian ceratopsians Superfamily Ceratopsoidea continued to thrive, but may have BERING n Asia, an early ceratopsoid dinosaur, never gotten bigger than a goat or more Size 6–8 ft (1.8–2.4m), LAND 1,000 lbs (450kg) BRIDGE Turanoceratops, evolved large brow ornamented than Zuniceratops. horns (fig. c, green) about 90 million Size comparison Shetland pony ASIA I years ago. Not long after, Turanoceratops- In North America, a remarkable plants Diet like dinosaurs dispersed across the Bering evolutionary explosion took place. By I A Age Late Cretaceous, I D M Land Bridge to Laramidia (now western 83 million years ago, true ceratopsids A 90 million years ago R A North America), and evolved into a pony- (animals more closely related to L I A C H Distribution of Fossil A L Triceratops than Zuniceratops, A sized form called Zuniceratops. P Moreno Hill Formation, New Mexico P A characterized by a complex dental Cool Fact arrangement) were well established • Zuniceratops was discovered in in Laramidia. New Mexico in 1996 by 8-year-old Christopher Wolfe. Zuniceratops displays classic ceratopsid features— like large horns over its eyes and a large frill—but North polar view of earth when early ceratopsians were evolving (about 100 million years ago). The easiest migration pathway into North America was via the lacked the complex dental structure of the latter. Bering Land Bridge into modern day Alaska. Map from series “Paleogeography and Tectonics in Deep Time” It is a perfect transitional fossil and thus classifies © 2016 Colorado Plateau Geosystems Inc. outside of true ceratopsids as a ceratopsOID..